Sweden

Amazon will launch in Sweden. This rumor has been going around for quite some time, but now it's just a matter of when, not if, Amazon will open Amazon.se to the Swedish public. Now the CEO of comparison site Pricerunner says Amazon will launch in Sweden very soon. "It's happening in the next 1 to 12 months."

Online pharmacist Apotea has been rewarded with an award for being Sweden's most favorite online store. The online-only pharmacist is followed closely by Adlibris and CDON. It's the first time PostNord has organized this competition, which is solely based on consumer votes.

There are several ecommerce companies in Sweden that have grown by several thousand percent since 2015. The fastest-growing ecommerce company in Sweden even saw its revenue increase by 61,850 percent between 2015 and 2016.

80 percent of leading retailers in the Nordics have an ecommerce app and a mobile-optimized ecommerce website. Almost one in five retailers have focused on optimizing their website for mobile visitors, rather than focusing on an app. Only 1 percent has neither.

Visa will invest in Klarna, one of Europe's fastest growing online payments companies. Today, the two companies announced they have the intention to develop a strategic partnership in the future. Visa and Klarna want to accelerate ecommerce and mcommerce for the benefit of consumers and retailers in Europe.

This month, Swedish fashion retailer Chiquelle won the Global E-commerce Award at this year's Global E-commerce Summit. The company's pitch won 52 percent of the audience vote, thereby beating Indian online grocery store Big Basket and Swedish furniture manufacturer Ikea. We interviewed CEO and co-founder Pouya Boland about the award and the latest developments, including expanding to more countries.

Klarna has been granted a full banking license by the Swedish financial supervisory authority Finansinspektionen. This means Klarna can operate as a bank, something it wanted for a long time. With a banking license, Klarna kan now broaden its product portfolio for customers and merchants.

The famous Swedish furniture retailer Ikea has plans to sell its products on websites of third-party retailers. The surprising move follows after Ikea has been targeting more online customers. The home furnishing retailer didn't comment on which platforms could be used for selling the Klippan sofa and Billy bookcase.

Some online stores tend to adjust their prices, so consumers won't go ordering something at a competitor's website. For Ecommerce News Europe, price tracking software provider Prisync looked at how many ecommerce websites in Europe change their prices daily and how high the stock-out ratio is in these countries.

The Nordic menswear and golf brand Oscar Jacobson is investing more in omnichannel retail as it is expanding its business in Europe. The company currently sells its menswear fashion items online in the United Kingdom and Sweden, but it will soon sell both online and through stores in Norway.

Foreign ecommerce websites are popular among online consumers in Sweden. But online shoppers also rely on local companies, such as IKEA, Netonnet and Elgiganten. The most popular online store in Sweden however, is a foreign ecommerce website.

The ecommerce industry in the Nordic region was worth 21.9 billion euros in 2016. The biggest share of online retail revenue in this region comes from Sweden, which generated 8.5 billion euros last year. But Norwegians scored the highest monthly amount spent per person.

More and more consumers in Sweden are using their smartphone or tablet to shop online. The amount of mobile users in the Northern European country increased by 79 percent last year. Currently, six in ten mobile users in Sweden are women.

The government of Sweden has proposed a new law that will make it illegal for online shops to sell alcohol to Swedish consumers. The new rules are envisaged to enter into force on 1 January 2018. The law is most likely to go against the EU regulations and the European Union has declined such proposals before. Still it can be bad news for some wine sellers.

Komplett.no, the biggest online retailer in Norway, will launch its own marketplace where other retailers can sell their products. The company is slowly transforming from being an online shop to an ecommerce marketplace and is aiming to become the Amazon of the Nordics.